China: Retail sales growth stabilizes in January–February
In January–February, nominal retail sales grew 8.2% on an annual basis, unchanged from December’s reading. Moreover, the print was in line with market expectations and mostly reflected that a softer contraction in sales of automobiles was offset by weaker growth in sales of oil and oil-related products and household appliances.
On a seasonally-adjusted basis, retail sales expanded 0.81% in February, broadly unchanged from the 0.82% increase in January. Meanwhile, annual average growth in retail sales inched down from 8.9% in January to 8.8% in February.